delete a singer

Getting Stuff Done How do I .... ?
#1

Hi all,

After a live concert, I’m trying to remove the singer (he doesnt like his voice and wants to do it again).
I have an 8 inputs card.
So I mute the singer’s microphone and I try to filter the 3 other microphones (essentially drum).
The “better” result is using the plugin “hardgate” but there is charasteristic noise after.
Is anyone solve that ?
One idea was to create a kind of trigger with the hargate and to play a midi note… Trying to find something since.

Thank’s

#2

Gates can be problematic in live enviroments, especially on smaller stages due to mics being in close proximity to other loud sound sources, like guitar amps and monitors on stage.

This is why i try and get stage volumes down as it can also cause problems in the live sound due to mics picking up sounds that cause from further away causing phase issues due to delays . A quieter stage is a cleaner sound.

A hard gate is going add clicks if it shuts to fast, and if it gets triggered by other sounds other than the drum it should be gating causing it to flutter opn and shut you get more clicking… You could try going through each drum sound and cut out the obvious parrts that are not drums so the gates dont get false triggered.

dont use fast attack times on gates, fast attack times cause gates to click. Fast release times are usually fine, the attack times cause clicks.

If the hard gate doesnt have any controls on attack, use another gate so you can fine tune the attack as this is most likely what is causing the noise.

#3

A gate is an extreme case of an expander. Maybe an expander plugin can be adjusted to cut out most of the bits you don’t want with fewer audible side-effects.

#4

Hi,

The hard gate was the only filter which get the drum without the singer… but it clicks.
A normal noise gate let the singer during the period where the signal is above the threashold… so not easy!
Do you know how/where to find documentation about the plugins… some have a midi entry … other have 3 entries and crash if you put them in a mono track (example mvclp).
There are also some used to convert (example herts to Vc) but what can i do with that???

Thanks

#5

wow, it would be so cool if one could just “delete a singer” hahahaha

now to the point:

@doglechien: although all arguments so far are quite valid, and being your problem right now to be able to record those vocals again without the interference of the previous one, i believe you are a bit (there’s a saying in my country… te ahogas en un vaso de agua) drowning in a glass of water… (note that the problem IS in deed getting the new vocals and not be interfered by the bleeding, not deleting all possible bleeding)

Once you do delete the singers track, you’re left with a few other tracks that are bleeding the voice, now strictly in the case of Kick and Snare you would be fine using a gate, and for other tracks well… its a bit of a sad story since you can see you find yourself dealing with issues that were not suposed to be there in the first place, like “bad singing” or “high volume onstage”, so there are a few things i’d recommend:

  1. Relax, not your fault, singers fault… and he has to be aware of that, and that you just can’t do magic nor time travel.
  2. Don’t gate other tracks that are not Kick or Snare, the feeling of a live recording and every recording is the room, and if you take that away you would be dealing with a lifeless or weird sounding recording, however you can give it a try using a sort of expander plugin like Dynomite from Mixbus if you find it actually suits well and doesn’t screw up the sound of the mix.
  3. Don’t waste your time trying to find 5 legs in a cat… don’t overlook the problem - no midi - no trigger.
  4. Instead of midi, trigger or hard gate, try using a good parametrical EQ, and filter out everything you don’t need from each track and in the case of those problematic voice bleeding tracks, try to filter it out A BIT… just enough to not make the track sound weird.
  5. Once you’ve done that, realize that once the singer records again, the volume of his new track will mostly definetely overcome by a lot of dBs any voice bleeding in other tracks, so:
  6. As long as you don’t use compression in the voice bleeding tracks, that bleeding will stay mostly down, letting you record the voice, put enough reverb for it to sit well in the mix and forget about the bleeding, then you can finish mixing and master.

Keep it simple, it will stay sounding elegant.
and elegant sounding music is always good.